Monday, December 31, 2018

KEY: star rating is on the four star scale
meaning of "/" or "\"
*** is three stars out of four
***/ is three stars leaning towards 3 1/2
***\ is three stars leaning towards 2 1/2

BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS
(Increasingly, I am sampling books, reading 10%, 20% even 40 or 50% before deciding to move on. The books below are only the ones I've read completely. That also explains what looks like generous grading -- more and more, if I sense a book is not going to be among my favorites, I stop reading. Too many books; too little time!)

(Not TV movies, of course, but movies and TV -- and TV movies if it comes to that. Mostly I only list TV shows when I've tackled an entire season at once or reappraising an entire series after it's over This doesn't really capture my ongoing watching of current TV.)

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Mediocre talents fail in dull, uninteresting ways. They mount a play, you shrug and forget it the next day. Bold, visionary talents fail in spectacular fashion. What were they thinking, you wonder, jaw agape? But at least you know they were thinking, striving, doing something or at least trying to do something. Director Ivo van Hove and his team of collaborators fail in marvelous fashion with this stage adaptation of Paddy Chayevsky's all too prescient film Network.

That movie was a scathing cry from the heart about the commercialization of journalism. A once-sacred area of television was becoming a profit center. Instead of providing a public good, corporations realized they could provide product in the guise of news and make money. A lot of it. Chayevsky saw it happening and created a wicked satire that showed news anchors expressing opinions on air! The more shocking their opinions the higher the ratings. It was absurd, over the top, ridiculous...and now seems quaint in comparison to what TV news has actually become.

At least with the terrific Bryan Cranston present, you're never in confusion as to why they tackled it in the first place. His supporting character -- newscaster turned prophet Howard Beale -- is fatally turned into the star of the show. It's like watching a second banana in a sitcom get their own spin-off; that rarely works and it certainly doesn't here.

For one thing, the adaptation by Lee Hall doesn't give Beale a bigger story or any sort of arc. In the film, he has a mental breakdown and those on-air rants he delivers ("I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!") are terrific thunderbolts. They break up the main story, which is really about an aging newsman cheating on both his wife and his journalistic conscience. (In the film, that character of Max Schumacher is played by William Holden; here it's Tony Goldwyn.) Beale doesn't change or grow -- he has a breakdown and that's about it.

Unfortunately, the same is true in this play. Beale has a breakdown early on...and that's about it. But this time around he dominates the action; in fact, whenever we interrupt his mania for a peek into Schumacher's disintegrating marriage it's kind of a jolt. Oh yeah, that's happening too. And Beale's rants grow increasingly predictable in every way. Playwright Hall jazzes up Beale's show a la the film with an elaborate new presentation. He's given a late night talk show sort of intro (rather than the sober air appropriate to a newsman) and an announcer and crew member urging applause give an elaborate spiel asking us to repeat Beale's catchphrase and then applaud loudly. That's fine once; it's even ok twice. But when they do it again and again and again it goes beyond making some sort of point and just feels lazy. They've made Beale the star of the show but they realize he has nothing to offer. If they're driving home the emptiness of the spectacle, well we got it the first time.

Cranston does what he can with the part. A skilled TV actor (as well as a Tony winning veteran of the stage), the part is in some ways perfect for him (if only it were better). He plays to the camera beautifully and if you feel drawn to watch him on one of the many video screens adorning the stage, well that makes perfect sense. After all, the TV is where Beale comes alive and that's rightly where Cranston pitches his performance.

Fans of the film may be aghast at how tepid the heart of the movie comes across here. Goldwyn and Tatiana Maslany of Orphan Black can do nothing with their doomed romance. And the corporate politics on display barely make an impression as the cameras whirl back around to another spiel from Howard Beale. They are sideshow to the prophet and he is sideshow to the real star of the show and the real tragedy: the directorial vision of van Hove and his team.

For years now, van Hove and a crack team of production talent have dominated theater and opera. Here it's Jan Versweyveld (scenic and lighting design), Tal Yarden (video design), An D'huys (costume design) and Eric Sleichim (music and sound). No matter what Van Hove tackles, it's sure to have a bold vision, a striking conceit that dominates his take on a classic of stage or screen. You may not always agree with his take on a piece (my personal favorite is his View From The Bridge as boxing match) but by God you had to deal with it.

Here they have come a cropper. As one might expect, this production of Network includes lots of tv cameras, lots of video screens and a stage that usually includes an announcer's desk front and center with a studio booth on stage right. What one doesn't expect is that stage right is dominated by...a bar facing the wall? With a few scattered tables and audience members who eat a meal while watching the show? And a couch from Schumacher's home? Now, the handful of audience members sitting on stage -- almost as if by accident -- aren't a studio audience. That would have made sense, I guess. Nor are they people in a bar or restaurant who might be coached into becoming glued to TVs playing in the bar when Beale goes on a rant. No, they're just sitting on stage, watching the show and eating dinner brought out by wait staff during set changes while we watch them and wonder what the heck they're doing up there.

The bar is used in maybe one and a half scenes, including a very early one where Cranston and Goldwyn sidle up to the bar for a heart to heart and stand in a far, far corner with their backs to the audience (though of course we can watch them on camera). Other than a sex scene that took place either in the bar or somewhere else (I wasn't quite sure), I can't for the life of me imagine why they had the bar onstage in the first place. Making matters worse, the studio booth is so narrow and cluttered (and so poorly covered by the cameras), that virtually nothing that happens in it is dramatically interesting or even visible, except for one brief line by Maslany late in the show. It's literally a jumbled mess that's ignored 90% of the time and a deeply awkward set when van Hove does try and stage some action there.

In short, one third of the stage is taken up by a jumbled studio booth that's hard to see into, the other side of the stage is taken up by an unnecessary bar and theater goers are seated in the midst of this, chowing down on food and drinking wine. If that's not enough, multiple scenes are staged out of sight entirely. You can (almost) always see the actors on a video screen but you also waste a lot of time peering around the set, wondering where in fact the actors who are talking to one another might actually be. One scene is actually set in front of the theater for no good reason, though it was nice to see New Yorkers know enough to not look at a camera and just keep walking, even if Tony Goldwyn and Tatiana Maslany are making out in front of them.

It's so...ugly, such a godawful mess, so unsatisfying and cluttered and so very, very different in every way from what van Hove and his team have done so many times before that it's hard to believe this was staged in London, they saw it...and then kept it intact for New York. What were they thinking? I haven't a clue but undoubtedly they were thinking of something and Cranston's magnetic if wasted turn as Beale let them think they were onto it.

As a final head-scratcher, the show ends, the cast takes its bow, the lights come up...and as the audience gathers its things, the video monitors begin to show news footage of Gerald Ford being sworn in as President of the United States. Huh? Maybe it's a testament to the power of TV or maybe the audience was just intrigued enough by the sheer randomness of this, but most everyone stayed put. Ford was followed by Jimmy Carter being sworn in and he was followed by Ronald Reagan. Well, it's clear where this is headed and you get no points for predicting like I did how the audience would react. George Bush Sr. got some polite applause (since he'd just died) while Bill Clinton received notably modest clapping himself. (His stock has fallen hard in recent years.) George W. Bush was mostly ignored, Barack Obama of course received thunderous applause and Donald Trump even louder boos. (Except for one yahoo in the orchestra who applauded. Tourists!)

It was admittedly a fascinating bit of tracking the popularity of recent US Presidents. But surely if they wanted to make some point connected with the show we just saw, they should have shown footage of Geraldo Rivera and Jerry Springer and Glenn Beck breaking down in tears on air a la Howard Beale and Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly and Sean Hannity today. Sure, they could have ended with Trump though that seems too obvious to bother. Presidential swearing-in footage? It's just one more missing piece of the puzzle that is this messy, confused, mixed message of a show from one of the most noteworthy talents in theater. Like Beale, van Hove might fall on his face sometimes, but he's never boring.

Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the creator of BookFilter, a book lover’s best friend. It’s a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. He’s also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day with top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It’s available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.

Legendary director Peter Brook returns with this fable-like story about a young man punished for an unspeakable crime. The story is presented on a mostly bare stage with a minimum of props. The cast includes some actors for whom English is a second language (which makes them one up on me) and so they speak slowly and stiffly. The Prisoner is quiet, elusive and ultimately as tad confounding and one is made to feel a rube for thinking so -- no wonder they applaud us at the end, as if to gently pat us on the head for grappling with their art. It is admirable, of course; how could something involving Peter Brook and his longtime collaborator Marie-Hélène Estienne not be admirable? But it is far from satisfying.

The narrative is so slim I will begin where Brook begins: with his note in the Playbill explaining the show's genesis. He traveled to Afghanistan and saw a man sentenced to an odd fate: he must sit outside a prison and face it, only leaving when he felt justified in doing so. Recognizing prison as a dehumanizing force, the idea was that this man might atone for his crimes, "repair" himself and go on to a productive life, rather than just being punished. Brook was intrigued by this image, it stayed with him and many years later he created this play, co-writing and co-directing it with Estienne.

So we see a young man in the aftermath of a terrible deed. His uncle sees the brutal life in prison and convinces a judge to change the sentence to the one described above. And so the young sits on a hill near some woods, facing a prison. Years pass as he is accosted by or simply encounters locals, an executioner, guards, a fellow prisoner and travelers. As one might expect for such an internal struggle, The Prisoner is meditative, modest and demands your full attention for its 85 minute running time. That attention is not squandered but neither is it rewarded.

In real life, Brook never found out what the "unspeakable crime" committed by the prisoner actually was. For the play, they invented one and more's the pity. An unspeakable crime has a lovely, fable-like ambiguity to it. Instead of a terrible crime, the play plainly states that the young man's father had recently been widowed. When the boy came home, he found his father in bed with the boy's sister -- in a rage, the son killed his dad. Patricide, even over a dreadful crime like that, is a tremendous taboo throughout history. But the incestuous act becomes a tremendous roadblock for the rest of the play.

First it explains what the young man did. Then he confesses his real fear: that it was a crime of jealousy, not rage and that he too wants an incestuous relationship with his sister. Then his sister tells him to stop all this self-flagellating nonsense and come home and be a father to the child she has born from sleeping with their dad. (It's unclear to me but she seems to be offering herself as his lover in the bargain.) When he turns her down, she drops off the kid with their uncle and heads to America to become a doctor. And the uncle tells the prisoner that yes, many cultures look down on incest but when he saw the father sleeping with the daughter, the uncle saw only love.

What the hell? Brook is not making any argument about Afghanistan's culture -- indeed, the show itself is explicitly universal and located nowhere in particular. Why in heaven's name he decided to introduce incest and then make everyone BUT the prisoner seem fine with it -- and to no particular purpose -- escapes me. You're so confused by the slow drip of details (it takes half the play or longer for all this information to get out) that it keeps you from understanding the motives of everyone involved...except the prisoner, who is the only one being punished. I'd be perfectly happy -- if dubious -- to watch a drama where characters argue cheerfully for incest. But The Prisoner doesn't so much argue for it as simply mention it in passing and then furrow its brow over your parochial complaints.

All of this is offered in a scrupulously poetical setting. Very little of it has dramatic heft, though Hiran Abeysekera as the prisoner and Hayley Carmichael as the wide-eyed traveler (and other roles) keep our attention when center stage. Nonetheless, running times matter and when a play is said to run 70 minutes but actually runs 85 minutes, that's telling. Running 20% long is a sure sign of actors indulging themselves or more likely here struggling to find something to play. It would be churlish to say one was a prisoner at this drama -- I'd rather see a failed work by real artists over a failed work of commercial pap any day of the week and Brook is indeed legendary. But whatever insight into human nature and crime and punishment this show strives for remains a mystery.

Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the creator of BookFilter, a book lover’s best friend. It’s a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. He’s also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day with top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It’s available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Okay, if you have any interest in Ruben and Clay's First Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show, by all means go ahead! If you're on the fence, one has to wonder why? Are you worried they won't sing enough Christmas songs or make enough American Idol references or deliver enough groan-worthy jokes? Fear not! If you're asking yourself, who are Ruben and Clay, well then this probably isn't for you. Unless that is, you're a tourist and you'd like to go to a Broadway show but don't want to spend $200 and you've already seen the Rockettes and you're in town and apparently Hamilton tickets are really hard to get (who knew?) and you just want a break from walking in which case, I think you're in luck!

This is the second year in a row someone has plopped a TV-centric holiday show onto Broadway, but this time it's actually more of a present for tourists instead of a trap. That earlier show included winners of The Voice, America's Got Talent and the like, which is to say shows that aren't American Idol. And we all know American Idol is the talent show that has actually discovered talent in recent years: Oscar-winning, Grammy-winning and (eventually) Tony-winning talent. (Constantine Maroulis was nominated for a Tony Award in 2009 for Rock Of Ages and Fantasia deserved a nomination when she stepped into The Color Purple.) Heck, Clay Aiken already appeared on Broadway during the run of Spamalot. So this isn't even his Broadway debut!

Have you guessed that I'm a fan of American Idol? Toss in the fact that I own a ridiculous amount of Christmas music AND I enjoy good/bad holiday specials of yore and you can imagine I am the perfect audience member for Ruben and Clay's First Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show.

Clay Aiken promises right at the top of the show that it will be modeled after those Bing Crosby/Perry Como/Partridge Family holiday specials and Ruben Studdard insists that means a very cheesy vibe. Mission accomplished! The medleys are so non-stop, the gags so dad-worthy, the skits and sentimentality so on-cue that I looked in vain for the TV cameras. It's not especially good. And it's not so-bad-it's good. It's just what it is -- a holiday special with two guys who rose to fame together via one of the most-watched TV showdowns of all time, enjoyed some success on their own and genuinely don't mind being joined at the hip even 15 years later. They don the same duds they wore for their Idol audition, Clay keeps trying to get his name listed first in the show's title, Ruben kids him about being the runner-up and if any of this makes you roll your eyes, well that's the point.

It all slips by painlessly, though not as fast as it should. Act One was heavier on the jokes -- including an admirably timely rewrite of "Baby It's Cold Outside." I especially enjoyed the goofy, Laugh-In style series of one liners. Actors stuck their heads through the curtain a la that variety show to deliver zingers. The winning gag for my group: "What does Santa Claus use to clean his sleigh? Comet!" Act Two was more serious, with the two leads each sharing videotaped memories of Christmas amidst a showcased ballad, then bringing tears to their eyes when they chatted about their friendship.

The supporting cast of three women and two men did a lot of heavy lifting on this nonsense. Saddled with bland material, they did their job and stayed out of the way of Clay and Ruben. Julian Diaz-Granados made the most of his chance, delivering the best vocals, the right goofy (but not dismissive) attitude to the nonsense and CW-ready looks (he should soon book a comedy or at least a guest spot on Riverdale).

The whole thing looks like it cost about $5, which actually helps -- the flimsier the material, the more a hometown, just-doing-it-for-fun vibe let's you feel supportive, the way one might at a school production. The night I attended they were gifted with a very eager audience member chosen to come on stage for a game of word association. Her hijinks alone raised the spirits (and I hate audience participation). Still, at two hours and ten minutes, it's easily 20 minutes too long. For starters, a PSA for the worthy charity Inclusion Project unnecessarily began act two. (They work to integrate kids with disabilities anywhere and everywhere and a portion of proceeds benefit them.) The video should have been displayed during the intermission. Then, cut one medley from each act, cut the jarring joke about Ruben using a bathroom installed in the set's chimney and maybe one or two of their heart-tugging videos and voila, you've just improved things mightily. (The only other joke that doesn't work is having Ruben flatly reject one of the cast members as a date right at the start. Her interest in a boyfriend is a very minor thread, but why shoot her down at the beginning or do it so coldly?)

If you'll notice, I haven't mentioned the music. What's to say? By and large, the medleys and arrangements are unmemorable and uninspired, if competent. The exception, unfortunately, is when Ruben tackles one of my favorite holiday songs: Stevie Wonder's "One Little Christmas Tree." Here music director Ben Cohn gets in the way of the song (and Ruben's singing) with a clunky arrangement. In terms of voice, I'd say Ruben's smooth vocals have risen a bit over the years (rather than lowered) and hold up better than Clay's. Of course, Clay still hits the Olympian heights, which sent the crowd I saw the show with into ecstasy. And Clay is far more comfortable onstage, bantering with the audience, delivering the goofy lines and setting the right tone. Ruben is so laid back he almost disappears at times, though he notably wakes up during a brief bit imitating a preacher to introduce one of Clay's showcases. (His dry wit comes across better on video.)

You can't complain all this is corny because Ruben beats you to it. Yet their chemistry come across nicely here, from the opening gags to their final duet on a Christmas standard that ends the night on a touch of faith...and another big, big note from Clay. Hey, they know their audience. Whether that audience is big enough to bring them back for Ruben and Clay's Second Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show, only time (and the box office) will show. It's doubtful. But if American Idol wants to extend its brand to a holiday special (and why not?) they've got the perfect hosts.

Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the creator of BookFilter, a book lover’s best friend. It’s a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. He’s also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day with top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It’s available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.